By Charlotte Matherly, contributor
School board members in Rockingham County said they’re looking to change a longstanding, district-wide policy aimed at deterring overnight field trips for students.
The current policy says those trips are “discouraged” but sometimes cannot be avoided. After raising the issue at a previous board meeting, school board members said they’re still not ready to vote on a new policy because they want to get the language right. However, they have yet to publicly share what that language might entail.
Nicholas Zimmerman, a family and consumer sciences teacher at Elkton Middle School, urged board members at Monday’s meeting to make the change.
“Field trips, including overnight ones, provide hands-on leadership development, training, competitions and collaboration for students in grades six through 12 involved in career and technical student organizations,” Zimmerman said.
Board chair Sara Horst said she’s on the same wavelength.
“For me, we’re interested in taking out ‘discouraged,’ because I think overnight trips and field trips are wonderful opportunities for students,” Horst said. “We’re not discouraging those. We’re going to look for better language.”
The board won’t act on any changes until the summer, Horst said, noting it can be difficult to implement some policies mid-year.
Proposed changes to the district’s policy would also require for overnight field trips at least one chaperone of the same gender as the students in attendance. For example, if at least one girl were on a trip, there’d have to be at least one female chaperone, while a male chaperone would have to go if at least one boy was on the trip.
Also of note
As a disagreement between county officials and the Harrisonburg City School Board has brewed in recent weeks over which group gets more control of the Massanutten Technical Center, there was no mention of the issue at Rockingham County’s Monday meeting.
While county school board members have argued that their larger financial contribution and enrollment should give them a bigger say, city officials are digging in to resist it. They unanimously rejected the proposal last week and said they won’t reduce their voting power – which is currently equal with the county’s – in decisions governing the career and technical education center, which the city and county both oversee.
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